This disclosure relates in general to copier/printers, and more particularly, to printing systems for monitoring and controlling with a model predictive controller (MPC) and more specifically to tuning the MPC controller in the face of disturbance preview.
Modern printers and copiers employ many control systems to achieve higher performance through varying control logic schemes. Example control systems include media transport control, marking process control, fuser temperature control and the like. Various control logic schemes are known that implicitly affect a tradeoff of performance and print parameters. However, these tradeoffs are built-in and cannot be varied on the fly. Some systems have the ability to switch between a normal run mode and specific operating modes, but they are simply either “ON” or “OFF.” The system cannot choose a varying level of functions or tailor specific functions for a specific component that is based on disturbances in the print process. To a printer or copier control system image content, media type, and other parameters are disturbances from the routine process. A disturbance preview is when the condition of the disturbance dynamics is known and available in advance.
A disturbance preview provides an opportunity for optimizing the print process by trading current performance for better overall performance. Before the impact of an impending disturbance, the state of the system may be driven out of the optimal region for current performance and enter a fast recovery region in preparation for the disturbance impact. However, conventional control systems in printing process do not take advantage of disturbance preview.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for anticipating the impact of a disturbance on a printer or copier and to control the printer or copier accordingly to mitigate the impact.